The Silent Eating Disorder
The first time I noticed I was “picky”, I was 10. My family took us to Disney World for the first time and every morning we went to the resort buffet.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t eat the eggs, the meat, the fruit, the yogurt. The only thing I could manage to keep down was a cinnamon bun with warm icing.
Try to get me to eat the other food and I would gag. Just the thought while I’m writing this makes me sick to my stomach.
I thought I would grow out of it, but over 20 years later and my “picky eating” is alive well, only now, I have a much better understanding of what it is and how to handle it.
For most of my life I’ve suffered from OCD and some form of an eating disorder (alternating between bulimia and anorexia) meaning that without a shadow of a doubt, I have a VERY complicated relationship with food.
I think a lot of people assume that my obsession is with my body image or weight, but for me, it’s always been about managing the overwhelming sensations and feelings in my body.
Sometimes I’m so full of emotion, that the thought of adding in some other sensation from food is just too much. Other times the act of purging is the exact contraction my stomach needs to relieve the overwhelming sensations caused by shame, powerlessness, and anxiety.
For the last 6 years, I’ve been active in my recovery and have made significant strides, learning tools to help me manage my depression and anxiety so I don’t turn to old habits and behaviors.
But even though I feel recovered in those areas, the “pickyness” is louder than ever.
Too smelly, wrong texture, not organic, prepared wrong, too wet, too processed, not processed enough, wrong brand, too cold, too hot, too mushy…..the list goes on and on.
I wish there was a rhyme or reason behind it, but when I try to explain the rules to anyone else they’re left absolutely confused.
Two years ago when I decided to explain this all to a friend, she wasn’t confused at all, instead she offered me this, “it sounds like you have something called ARFID, you should look into that”.
While it’s not an exact match for what I experience, reading the description made me feel seen. FINALLY. Finally I read about other people having the same obscure “rules” and “picky eating” like me.
Since then, I’ve come to realize three things:
Most of my rules involve overwhelming my senses (specifically my sense of smell).
To some degree I have “fear”. Fear of chemicals, fear of gagging, fear of getting sick.
My pickiness worsens when I am traveling, am somewhere new, or somewhere overstimulating like an amusement park or food court.
By now you could be wondering, “why the heck is she telling us this??” And to be fair, that’s a great question, I’m not fully sure myself.
I think a lot of why I want to talk about this now is because I want to shed light on what some people call “the silent eating disorder”.
I write this, thinking of the overstimulated kid surrounded by people who think she’s just being weird. I write this thinking of the overwhelmed adult feeling embarrassed or guilty because they can’t eat like “other people” do. I write this, thinking of the parent who can’t quite seem to understand why their child won’t eat and is at a loss for how to help.
Our society is set up to teach us to ignore our bodies: “mind over matter, logic over emotion, doing versus being”. We’ve been taught for as long as we can remember to think our way out of situations, instead of feeling our way.
While a disorder like ARFID is very complicated and still being studied, many eating disorders can be overcome when we learn how to feel comfortable and safe inside of our bodies.
How do we do that? With practices like Yoga, TRE, Breathwork, Meditation (and many many more little things you can implement each day).
I’ll be talking more about how to use these modalities to create a better relationship with your body, so follow along, ask questions in the comments below, and let me know what you resonate with most!
Happy healing,
#justteal
